Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is asking NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh to pull out of the deal he has with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to force an election this fall. In a letter to his opposition counterpart made public Thursday, Poilievre calls on Singh to pull out of the supply-and-confidence deal helping keep the Liberal minority government in power.
The Official Opposition leader’s suggestion is to side with his party and “vote non-confidence in the government this September,” when the House of Commons resumes, “to trigger a carbon tax election” in October of this year, rather than wait until the fixed election date of October 2025. This push from Poilievre was the focus of a press conference he held outside of West Block Thursday.
“Canadians can’t afford or even endure another year of this costly coalition. No one voted for you to keep Trudeau in power. You do not have a mandate to drag out his government another year,” Poilievre said in the letter. Speaking to reporters, Poilievre pointed to the rumoured Trudeau cabinet shuffle or leadership shakeup that did not materialize this summer as evidence that “nothing will change.”
“He will not quit. He must be fired, and the person to do it is Jagmeet Singh,” Poilievre said. The two-party pact signed in 2022 is designed to keep the Trudeau government in power until the end of the current Parliament by seeing the NDP back the Liberals on confidence votes, in exchange for progress on longstanding NDP priorities. From the outset, the Conservatives have characterized it as a coalition, though the two parties have not formed a coalition government.
Earlier this week, Government House Leader Karina Gould told reporters that she was “fairly confident” the agreement will hold through to the mutually-agreed-upon expiry date in June 2025. “It's a strong agreement,” she said.
Today, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Poilievre’s push for an early election is a sign he’s “a little bit worried.” “I think we need to really take these assertions by the Conservative leader with a healthy, a very healthy grain of salt. The reality is, in recent weeks and months, we have had a steady stream of good economic news for Canadians,” Freeland said. “And I think it's pretty pathetic that the good news, the good economic news that we are seeing… the Conservatives feel is bad news for them.”
In the letter, Poilievre accuses Singh of keeping the deal going so that he can qualify for his MP pension. There are a number of MPs that need to keep their seats until next October in order to qualify for a pension. However, because Singh was first elected in a byelection in February 2019, he’s poised to qualify for his in six months, well before the deal with the Liberals is set to expire.
“When you agreed to join the costly coalition to keep Justin Trudeau in power, you promised it would ‘make people’s lives more affordable.’ Yet by your own admission, your coalition has been a disaster for working Canadians,” Poilievre writes, pointing to recent comments Singh made about the cost of groceries. The agreement has seen the federal government advance the first phases of dental and pharmacare, two programs both the Liberals and New Democrats have said are aimed at helping lower-income Canadians with the cost-of-living crunch. They are also programs that the progressive parties fear a Poilievre-led government would cut. The Official Opposition leader was asked repeatedly Thursday whether he’d uphold these and other social supports, and would not say.
While Singh was not available for comment, his House Leader NDP MP Peter Julian said “leaving the deal is always on the table for Jagmeet Singh,” but that they “fundamentally disagree” with Poilievre’s plans. “Let’s be clear: Pierre Poilievre wants to win an election because he wants to cut health care, cut your pension and cut EI in order to give more to big corporations. He wants to ensure pharmacare cannot make it to implementation this fall,” Julian said in a statement. “The NDP believes in the Canadian value of taking care of our neighbours. That’s what we’ve always done and what guides us before and after an election.”
There would also be an electoral advantage for the Conservatives to see Canadians go to the polls this fall, according to CTV News’ pollster Nik Nanos. “We'd see a Conservative victory. They've led since last August, so the reality is, right now it would be a crushing defeat for the Liberals and Pierre Poilievre would be prime minister,” Nanos said. “When we ask Canadians who they prefer as prime minister, Pierre Poilievre still has a double digit advantage over Justin Trudeau. So right now, Pierre Poilievre is leading on the ballot, he's leading on the preferred prime minister, not a big surprise he wants an election.”
With two big byelections looming and more work to do to cement some of the public policy objectives within the pact, political observers said now may not be the time for Singh to consider pulling out. But, as the next fixed election date nears, and if the NDP’s electoral fortunes start to shift the more Poilievre takes aim at orange-blue swing voters, it could become a more live question. Conservative candidate Don Stewart winning the closely-watched Toronto-St. Paul's federal byelection, and delivering a stunning upset to Justin Trudeau's candidate Leslie Church in the long-time Liberal riding, has sent political shockwaves through both parties.
